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The SollyLama
Skeptic Friend
USA
234 Posts |
 Posted - 09/03/2002 : 10:33:38
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This is an interesting topic to me, because I grew up on punk and heavy metal, during the heyday of the PMRC. Some of my favorite bands got sued for suicides, murders, etc.
I always held that it didn't affect crime much beyond the few wackos every group will attract. Sure Ricky Kasso is a good argument for the PMRC, but he's a rare animal indeed.
But the emergence of rap has made me think twice. Maybe it's just because I loathe rap. But having lived in a barracks for a decade, I got to hear plenty of it booming out of rooms.
What I heard was the simple glorification of a criminal lifestyle. Sure there's more than 'gangster rap', but that's what sells the most.
The difference between references to satanism or violence in metal and rap's message is how it can be damaging in reality. Black candles, incence and stupid books like the Necronomicon are pretty harmless. Further evidence: there has been no widespread outbreak of satanic kids sacrificing babies.
There is however a widespread epidemic of inner city youth gangs turning cities into battlefields. Of course I don't lay all the blame on rap. Most of the inner city kids might join gangs anyway.
But the rap that espouses the gang thing is listened to more by middle class suburban kids than urban kids too broke to buy CDs. The gang problem of middle class kids has exploded in almost direct proportion to the emergence of rap as a leading musical genre. Sorry I don't have figures, I got that from a talking head on a VH1 show.
So I wanted to get some SFN opinions here.
1) Does music (I'm avoiding just targetting rap, although it's my prime example) have such a dramatic effect today?
2) If it does have such an effect, should it be regulated in any way?
3) who else misses music where people actually play instruments?!
No remorse, No repent. We don't care what it meant. Another day another death. Another sorrow another breath.
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Bradley
Skeptic Friend
USA
147 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2002 : 10:54:53 [Permalink]
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I blame George Jones and Kris Kristofferson for making me a womanizing alcoholic, and, hey, it's better than taking the blame myself.
"Too much doubt is better than too much credulity."
-Robert Green Ingersoll (1833 - 1899) |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2002 : 10:58:03 [Permalink]
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quote:
This is an interesting topic to me, because I grew up on punk and heavy metal, during the heyday of the PMRC. Some of my favorite bands got sued for suicides, murders, etc.
I always held that it didn't affect crime much beyond the few wackos every group will attract. Sure Ricky Kasso is a good argument for the PMRC, but he's a rare animal indeed.
But the emergence of rap has made me think twice. Maybe it's just because I loathe rap. But having lived in a barracks for a decade, I got to hear plenty of it booming out of rooms.
What I heard was the simple glorification of a criminal lifestyle. Sure there's more than 'gangster rap', but that's what sells the most.
The difference between references to satanism or violence in metal and rap's message is how it can be damaging in reality. Black candles, incence and stupid books like the Necronomicon are pretty harmless. Further evidence: there has been no widespread outbreak of satanic kids sacrificing babies.
There is however a widespread epidemic of inner city youth gangs turning cities into battlefields. Of course I don't lay all the blame on rap. Most of the inner city kids might join gangs anyway.
But the rap that espouses the gang thing is listened to more by middle class suburban kids than urban kids too broke to buy CDs. The gang problem of middle class kids has exploded in almost direct proportion to the emergence of rap as a leading musical genre. Sorry I don't have figures, I got that from a talking head on a VH1 show.
So I wanted to get some SFN opinions here.
1) Does music (I'm avoiding just targetting rap, although it's my prime example) have such a dramatic effect today?
2) If it does have such an effect, should it be regulated in any way?
3) who else misses music where people actually play instruments?!
No remorse, No repent. We don't care what it meant. Another day another death. Another sorrow another breath.
1) No. Music does not have any effect either way. It's just that the younger generation is more suseptable to the message due to the ADD/ADHD catch all and it's attendant dissociative mental state drugs. Therefore, the drugs, not the music, is to blame. As well as lazy parenting and government's removal of punishments.
While growing up I was actually diagnosed with ADHD. I was given a shot (they called it ACE) bimonthly. After five years, the shots were completely discontinued due to the effect of a dietary change to combat the effects of hypoglycemia. During this time, I didn't kill anyone. But then again, I wasn't drugged with Prozac or Ritalin.
2) The drugs should be regulated a lot more and prescribed when it is actually warranted, not when the teachers or parents just "can't handle" the kids.
3) I'm a child of the eighties, my wife claims that my music sucks. But I do miss the days when if your car stereo rattled the windows of a house four blocks away, you got a ticket. I also miss harmony. Rap tends to have some synthesisers, bass, and percussion. But some people like it.
Cthulu/Asmodeus, when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils.
Edited by - valiant dancer on 09/03/2002 11:01:01 |
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jmcginn
Skeptic Friend
343 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2002 : 11:02:21 [Permalink]
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Gangsters and gang violence existed long before rap. Rap in its original form was an artistical expression created by young inner city kids who lived in those hell holes.
Break dancing one of the predecessors of rap also stems from this inner city culture. (Yes I grew up with friends who wore the plastic pants with zippers all over them and who tried their best to moon walk despite growing up in Eastern KY, by the way I have always been a metal head so I find both forms of music aesthetically repulsive and other than old heavy metal I only enjoy classical, folk music, bag pipes, etc. I either listen to public radio or my own collection of Black Sabbath & Led Zeppelin tapes :> ) By the way if you want to see funny, imagine a red neck kid with break dance pants on, a camo tee shirt, a dip of snuff in his lip, and the typical eastern KY hair doo of short on top and the long rat tail in the back :>
As far as your #1 & #2 I would say no, entertainment rarely effects individuals let alone whole groups to commit crimes or other acts of deviency while bad social problems and bad parenting do often lead to such behavior. And no it should not be regulated (who decides what is offensive and what is not?) since this would be a direct violation of the 1st Amendment.
There is still plenty of music where people play instruments, just not in the "pop" culture world where instruments have slowly been whittled away to be replaced with a "production" of sound effects, flashy dances, and catchy lyrics (I think we have the disco - > break dance - > rap transition and its popularity to thank for this).
Edited by - jmcginn on 09/03/2002 11:04:46 |
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2002 : 11:08:25 [Permalink]
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I think the problem is that you have things reversed. It's real life that is influencing the music and not the other way around.
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2002 : 12:25:44 [Permalink]
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Well I think that the music mostly just reflects aspects of society and not really influences it all that much. It is of course a very complex system, but I think it is more of art imitating reality than reality imitating art. Of course it is a lot easier to lobby for censoring music, then it is to achieve changes in the real world, so most people will try that approach first.
But to the first question:
Does the music industry influence crime?
I will have to answer, YES.
The music indutry does influence crime. They do so by lobbying for laws and changing what is legal and what is illegal. Groups like the RIAA are creating more criminal by having new laws passed, then through selling records with lyrics about cop-killing.
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The SollyLama
Skeptic Friend
USA
234 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2002 : 13:04:41 [Permalink]
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I think the cycle goes: reality precedes the art, in this case real gangs before the rap that glorifies it. However, that nugget of reality is blown up by the media into something much larger by virtue of entertainments incredible power on people. This distorts the reality the way a movie car crash is so much more impressive than in reality.
So the mass of people, not directly in contact with that little bit of reality, mistake the media version for real life. More people buy into this version, feeding the cycle to create more in the media to satisfy the growing need.
Whew.
The problem is that the message rap pushes is not even thinly veiled in regards to bigotry and violence. The media only aggravates the problem.
This is then pushed into suburbia, where kids that have no concept of what the core reality of rap is, they only know what Mtv shows them. So they take it seriously and now nearly rural kansas farmland has gang problems.
Kids didn't pack guns to school just a decade or so ago. I know because if any kid was going to be bringing in guns it would have been me. I was the criminal element in my high school.
Knives, chains, crowbars.......the good old days of fighting. When a few stitches was all you had to worry about.
I'm not terribly concerned what happens in south central. The inner city has been a battleground for centuries, pretty well written off. But the invasion into suburbia is a major problem. Most of these wannabe bad asses are just kids trying to be tough. But that leads to confrontation, which has become far more lethal in the past few years.
For all the implied violence of heavy metal, there just wasn't many shootouts in the 'burbs in the 80's. It was national fucking news when a kid from the burbs killed another. Now it doesn't even make headlines locally. It's common.
I remember when the only 'gangs' anyone (in New England anyway) worried about were the Hell's Angels and the Pagans. I was sorta headed that way myself.
But the media DOES influence whole masses of people. Kids in suburban Wichita sure as hell wouldn't be loaded down in gold like Mr. T, driving low riders, and doing drive-bys on each other if it weren't for the spread of rap. On the other hand there is country music, which might aid the spread of sheep-humping, so we have to be careful.
I'm not for censorship. And I don't lay all the blame on rap's Fifa-wearing feet. But at the risk of sounding like my parents-
what the hell are these kids listening to?
No remorse, No repent. We don't care what it meant. Another day another death. Another sorrow another breath. |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2002 : 15:16:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
This is an interesting topic to me, because I grew up on punk and heavy metal, during the heyday of the PMRC. Some of my favorite bands got sued for suicides, murders, etc.
I always held that it didn't affect crime much beyond the few wackos every group will attract. Sure Ricky Kasso is a good argument for the PMRC, but he's a rare animal indeed.
But the emergence of rap has made me think twice. Maybe it's just because I loathe rap. But having lived in a barracks for a decade, I got to hear plenty of it booming out of rooms.
What I heard was the simple glorification of a criminal lifestyle. Sure there's more than 'gangster rap', but that's what sells the most.
The difference between references to satanism or violence in metal and rap's message is how it can be damaging in reality. Black candles, incence and stupid books like the Necronomicon are pretty harmless. Further evidence: there has been no widespread outbreak of satanic kids sacrificing babies.
There is however a widespread epidemic of inner city youth gangs turning cities into battlefields. Of course I don't lay all the blame on rap. Most of the inner city kids might join gangs anyway.
But the rap that espouses the gang thing is listened to more by middle class suburban kids than urban kids too broke to buy CDs. The gang problem of middle class kids has exploded in almost direct proportion to the emergence of rap as a leading musical genre. Sorry I don't have figures, I got that from a talking head on a VH1 show.
So I wanted to get some SFN opinions here.
1) Does music (I'm avoiding just targetting rap, although it's my prime example) have such a dramatic effect today?
2) If it does have such an effect, should it be regulated in any way?
3) who else misses music where people actually play instruments?!
No remorse, No repent. We don't care what it meant. Another day another death. Another sorrow another breath.
PMRC
Ricky Kasso
rare animal indeed
'gangster rap'
I keep telling you, I don't understand your words, however:
When I saw the subject of the folder I wanted to ask, How could listening to the 'Ode to Joy', cause crime?
I see you are talking about a certain kind of 'music' if you want to call it that. Rap Crap is NOT music but that aside, as you mentioned, I don't think it causes anything but stupidity. The people who listen to it are dumb. There have always been problems, long before that particular kind of 'noise' started being recorded. It's not music alone, it's people who are not taught to think for themselves. So I'd say, it's the schools and the education system that helps to make people criminals.
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*Carabao forever
*SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SECESSION - YES
*All lives are movie settings, it's what channel you're on that counts. Zatikia
*Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand.
Homer Jaye S. |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2002 : 15:40:21 [Permalink]
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quote:
There is still plenty of music where people play instruments, just not in the "pop" culture world where instruments have slowly been whittled away to be replaced with a "production" of sound effects, flashy dances, and catchy lyrics (I think we have the disco - > break dance - > rap transition and its popularity to thank for this).
I have posted this before, don't remember where but have not seen anyone talk about it or answer what I say.
And that is this:
As related to your statement above, not only in music but the visual arts, probably all the others too, everything seems to be 'flashier'. For example, the opening credits of TV shows, and on commericals too, many, most really, are images being bombbarded toward the viewer so quickly one can't even absorb the words or messages. I think that's one reason I don't know the names of so called famous people, I watch a TV show but can't read the names of the actors fast enough to know who they are. Anyway, it's my theory that 'they' (the gov. and big business) don't want people to think. They just want to distract us with images so our minds jump from one thing to another and we won't take the time to wonder what's going on. They do that on the news too. Important stories are suffled aside but things like car chases (last night here in Los Angeses, the 11 o'clock new had one at the beggining for at least 15 mins. while the reporters chatted back and forth about meaningless speckulation as to what was happening). They want to public to be ignorant and only concerned with nonsense.
Let people listen to rap crap, just don't blast it out from your god damn car at me. Let those people stay uninformed and ignorant just don't frustrate me with their uneducated nonsense and life style.
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*Carabao forever
*SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SECESSION - YES
*All lives are movie settings, it's what channel you're on that counts. Zatikia
*Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand.
Homer Jaye S. |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2002 : 15:44:16 [Permalink]
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quote:
Fifa-wearing feet.
I have to ask..
What the hell does that mean?
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*Carabao forever
*SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SECESSION - YES
*All lives are movie settings, it's what channel you're on that counts. Zatikia
*Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand.
Homer Jaye S. |
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The SollyLama
Skeptic Friend
USA
234 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2002 : 16:47:00 [Permalink]
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quote:
PMRC
Ricky Kasso
rare animal indeed
'gangster rap'
--you'd have to live in a cave to not know what defines 'gangster rap'. I just can't bring myself to spell it in ebonics.
Here's a clue- rap, the musical genre plus gangster (at least how it applies to street hoods, not real gangsters like Al Capone or Lucky Luciano). Wanna take a stab at what it implies? Rap about street gangs maybe?
Okay, Ricky Kasso might be obscure. He was a NY teen into heavy metal that dropped too much acid and killed a neighbor kid. There is a book about it called "Say You Love Satan." The book implied that the satanic music (Slayer, Megadeth) was responsible for this kid offing another. (The book fails miserably to make the connection)
PMRC- Parent's Music Resource Coalition. OR was it Committee? Whatever, a bunch of senator's wives that wanted some camera time. They held congressional hearings (guess who's husbands were on that panel....) regarding rock lyrics, specifically Heavy Metal. Frank Zappa, Dee Snider (from the band Twisted Sister), and John Denver all addressed the panel. If you don't know who John Denver or Frank Zappa are, you must have just arrived from post-Taliban Afghanistan. Welcome.
Look at most any hard rock, heavy metal, rap, or hip hop album in America and notice that spiffy warning label about explicit lyrics. That's the direct result of the PMRC.
Jeez, you are out of touch. I'm whiter than Casper and I know this. Fifa is a brand of sportswear favoried by the hip hop/rap crowd. For fuck's sake just look at any white kid with his hat on sideways, chances are he'll be wearing Fifa head to toe. It replaced Tommy Hilfiger as the 'in' clothes. Man, I wear concert t-shirts and jeans. I still own Chuck Taylor All Stars. And I still know what Fifa is.
No remorse, No repent. We don't care what it meant. Another day another death. Another sorrow another breath. |
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The SollyLama
Skeptic Friend
USA
234 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2002 : 17:13:44 [Permalink]
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I fucked up. I misspelled it. It's FiLa, with an L. I bet that cleared it all up, huh?
No remorse, No repent. We don't care what it meant. Another day another death. Another sorrow another breath. |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2002 : 23:51:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
quote:
PMRC
Ricky Kasso
rare animal indeed
'gangster rap'
--you'd have to live in a cave to not know what defines 'gangster rap'. I just can't bring myself to spell it in ebonics.
Here's a clue- rap, the musical genre
I keep telling you, rap crap IS NOT music, genre or otherwise. BUt in any case, I've noticed that there's this horrid 'noise' that many commerical are starting to use, as soon as I hear it start I put my fingers in my ears and humm for the count of 60. If it's on the radio in my car I turn it off. If it's in some assholes car on the street, I give them the finger. So as you can see, I try to isolate myself from that misserable sound as much as possible. Don't know the difference between any of it just that it hurts my ears.
quote:
Okay, Ricky Kasso might be obscure. He was a NY teen into heavy metal that dropped too much acid and killed a neighbor kid.
Thanks for clearing that up.
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PMRC- Parent's Music Resource Coalition. OR was it Committee?
OoooooH! You mean that thing started by Tippsy......Gore. I never paid attention to that much because it made me too angry and that's the reason I wouldn't vote for Al Gore. I can't stand that moron of a woman, she's NUTS. Gee, why didn't you say what it was, that was so long ago.
quote:
Look at most any hard rock, heavy metal, rap, or hip hop album in America and notice that spiffy warning label about explicit lyrics.
I haven't been in a record store for many years and when I go to places, like Target that have music I don't even pass by that section of the store so as to notice what's there.
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That's the direct result of the PMRC.
So! They really went through with that nonsense and put lables on the covers of albums. That's a laugh, like anyone pays attention to it and it just makes things cost more for the companies to do that. Damn Democrats. Tippsy is an idiot.
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Fifa is a brand of sportswear favoried by the hip hop/rap crowd. For fuck's sake just look at any white kid with his hat on sideways,
I try not to look at anyone who dresses like that, I just figure they are not very intelligent and I'd rather not have anything to do with stupid people.
quote:
chances are he'll be wearing Fifa head to toe. It replaced Tommy Hilfiger as the 'in' clothes. Man, I wear concert t-shirts and jeans. I still own Chuck Taylor All Stars. And I still know what Fifa is.
Don't know anything about Tommy Hilfiger or what's 'In'. Never heard of Fifa, haven't bought shoes for years either. The few shirts I get, my room mate buys for me. He knows what size I wear. I hate shopping for clothes. Target had a sale a couple of years ago on sweatpants I bought several then, haven't needed any new ones yet. I buy my socks at the 99 Cents Only Stores or at Target when they are cheaper then 99 cents. So there you have it. Sorry about not wanting to wear sports shoes. Tie up shoes hurt my feet. Oh, and the last time I bought tennis shoes they were about $10, I noticed a while ago they are more expensive than that, I refuse to anything over that, and I think anyone who does is a moron. LOL, could be why anyone who listens to that rap crap is the same, an idiot moron.
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*Carabao forever
*SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SECESSION - YES
*All lives are movie settings, it's what channel you're on that counts. Zatikia
*Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand.
Homer Jaye S. |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2002 : 00:08:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
I fucked up. I misspelled it. It's FiLa, with an L. I bet that cleared it all up, huh?
Nope! It didn't clear it up. I still never heard of it.
BTW, that last line 'I refuse to anything over that,' that I wrote, should have said,
I refuse to BUY anything over that (price).
And further, anyone who buys 'brand names' is a moron. I don't think they are made any better than something that is much less expensive but doesn't have an 'IN' lable. If someone is buying something just to show off, I would never want to know someone so insecure that they have to prove they can afford things with a name on them. Or that they have to look like what everyone else is wearing.
To get back to the topic. That's a crime.
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*Carabao forever
*SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SECESSION - YES
*All lives are movie settings, it's what channel you're on that counts. Zatikia
*Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand.
Homer Jaye S. |
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The SollyLama
Skeptic Friend
USA
234 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2002 : 08:39:46 [Permalink]
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Tipper and her PMRC shitheads didn't actually put the labels on the records. The music industry caved in not a week after the hearings. It was a voluntary thing by the industry.
The only brand names I care about is music gear. I do insist on Levi's Jeans, but that's because there are the only pants I trust. After receiving other brands for xmas, I tossed them all but my Levi's. They all either had bell bottoms, stretchy material like chick clothes, or were designed to hang down past your balls in the hip hop fashion.
I'll take my regular guy, 1800's issue Levi's. I do have a jones for good brand music gear though. B.C Rich, Digitech, Monster Cables, etc. You do get what you pay for in that business.
I also hesitate to call rap 'music', but my mother said the same thing about Ozzy, so I give it the benefit of a doubt.
I do believe that to be in a band, you should play a real instrument. Scratching up old vinyl records doesn't qualify anymore than dragging fingernails across a chaulkboard counts. Sounds about the same to me.
But I totally disagree that rap is only imitating real life.
First, I don't buy that all these rap stars were really in gangs. OF COURSE, they claim it. They'll selling 'gangster rap', it wouldn't do for the 'artist' (gag) to be a sunday school teacher rapping about 'bustin' caps in niggers with my niner'. <---Real lyrics I heard from a rollerskate-mobile at a traffic light.
So I doubt the validity of (most) rap to be 'real life' for art to imitate. Do you really think Eminem is a bad ass from the streets? He's a middle class skinny white kid with identity issues. Ice T is an actor. But that won't push CD's off shelves.
I saw a short bit on a VH1 show about rap where kids (almost universally white) in rural mid-western cities like Wichita were into the gang scene. You're going to tell me that Billy Bob Hayseed is in a gang for any other reason than to imitate pop culture icons, such as rappers? This is not art imitating life, it's the exact opposite.
The actual population of real, hardcore gangbangers is still tiny compared to any given population in a city. So the amount of 'art' that imitates them should be equally small. It is not. Rap and hip hop are (much to my disgust) pretty well THE number one musical genre in the US. So I doubt seriously that what 'art' is presented to kids is even based on much reality at all.
No remorse, No repent. We don't care what it meant. Another day another death. Another sorrow another breath. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2002 : 09:32:57 [Permalink]
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I agree with this part of what you're saying.
I don't think there's anything wrong with listening to music, including rap, or participating or watching sports, but the corporate media makes it seem important.
It's no accident. Just as religion is an opiate, some of these things can be opiates. People watch football endlessly, or the latest cutie in her music video, or George Bush's latest antics, and are told that these people are important. We watch the Gulf War, and it's promoted like a video game or football game and are told what to think about it. We're given endless hours of Princess Di and told that that's what the public wants.
People can recite all the generals and battles in the Civil War, all the stats for their favorite teams, but they'll tell you that foreign policy is too complicated. Leave it to the "experts." Bullship.
The people that run things don't want you to think and participate in the running of things.
They want you to think what you're here for is to buy their stuff and think the way that you're told to think and pay your taxes and wave your flags and go to church and be thankful that you're given what you've been given.
Well I'm very thankful, but I haven't been given shit by those people. What I've been given has been given by those who work for a living and resist the control of people like that.
quote:
Anyway, it's my theory that 'they' (the gov. and big business) don't want people to think. They just want to distract us with images so our minds jump from one thing to another and we won't take the time to wonder what's going on. They do that on the news too. Important stories are suffled aside but things like car chases (last night here in Los Angeses, the 11 o'clock new had one at the beggining for at least 15 mins. while the reporters chatted back and forth about meaningless speckulation as to what was happening). They want to public to be ignorant and only concerned with nonsense.
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn
Edited by - gorgo on 09/04/2002 09:34:12 |
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